Office of the United States Trade Representative

 

USTR Announces Additional Allocation of Sugar Imports for African and Caribbean Countries
12/09/2005


Washington - The Office of the United States Trade Representative today announced it will allocate additional sugar imports permitted under international trade rules to several African and Caribbean countries.

On December 2, the U.S. Department of Agriculture increased the quantity of the FY 2006 tariff rate quota (TRQ) for raw sugar quota by 272,155 metric tons to 1.5 million metric tons and the quota and 2006 TRQ for refined sugar by 136,078 metric tons to 211,207 metric tons in response to current supply shortages in the domestic market.

U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman said today's allocation of the additional imports should help sugar producers African and Caribbean countries.

"We need additional sugar in the U.S. market and it makes sense to provide whatever opportunity we can to producers in developing countries," said Portman.

Among the African and Caribbean countries that will benefit are Barbados, Belize, Guyana, Jamaica, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, South Africa, and Swaziland.

The allocation announcement comes as Portman prepares to lead to the U.S. delegation to the World Trade Organization ministerial meeting in Hong Kong December 13-18.

At that meeting, the U.S. will continue to push for major reforms in agricultural trade policies. In October, the U.S. offered a broad proposal to cut tariffs and reduce or eliminate a variety of trade-distorting subsidies but it has been blocked primarily by the European Union.

With regard to sugar, the EU has recently agreed to lower its price supports. This move could negatively impact revenue for producers in former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean who send their output to Europe.

In August, USTR announced the country-by-country tariff-rate quota allocations of the raw cane sugar, refined sugar, and sugar-containing products for Fiscal Year (FY) 2006. A tariff-rate quota is an import policy that allows countries to ship specified quantities of a product to the United States at a relatively low tariff, but subjects all other imports of that product to a higher tariff. The Secretary of Agriculture established the in-quota quantity of the tariff-rate quota for raw cane sugar for FY 2006 at 1,226,057 metric tons.

Here is the list of additional sugar allocations:

Country

FY 2006 Additional Allocation

 

 

Argentina

11,797

 

 

Australia

22,771

 

 

Barbados

1,920

Belize

3,018

 

 

Bolivia

2,195

 

 

Brazil

39,781

 

 

Colombia

6,584

 

 

Costa Rica

4,115

 

 

Dominican Republic

48,286

 

 

Ecuador

3,018

 

 

El Salvador

7,133

 

 

Fiji

2,469

 

 

Guatemala

13,169

 

 

Guyana

3,292

 

 

Honduras

2,744

 

 

India

2,195

 

 

Jamaica

3,018

 

 

Malawi

2,744

 

 

Mauritius

3,292

 

 

Mozambique

3,567

 

 

Nicaragua

5,761

 

 

Panama

7,956

 

 

Peru

11,248

 

 

Philippines

37,037

 

 

South Africa

6,310

 

 

Swaziland

4,390

 

 

Taiwan

3,292

 

 

Thailand

3,841

 

 

Trinidad-Tobago

1,920

 

 

Zimbabwe

3,292

These allocations are based on the countries' historical shipments to the United States. The allocations of the raw cane sugar tariff-rate quota to countries that are net importers of sugar are conditioned on receipt of the appropriate verifications of origin. All other country allocations remain unchanged from those announced on August 30, 2005.

*Conversion factor: 1 metric ton = 1.10231125 short tons.

 
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